National Lampoon's Persian Vacation
BBC News is reporting that U.S. special forces are operating inside Iran.
Further articles are here, here, here, and here. All of the articles stem from this article in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh.
There are a couple of money shots worth noting. The first one is from the BBC article.
To me, this blurb says "We don't have any actual evidence, Seymour Hersh hasn't divulged his sources of any actual evidence, but this story is remotely plausible, and we really want to believe it because it means that the evil big bad Amerikkkan Bush administration is doing something mean and nasty!"
The second money shot comes from the CNN article.
There's one word, and one word only, for this kind of behavior: treason. This is why we've heard of purges within the CIA following President Bush's reelection, George Tenet's resignation, the results of the 9/11 Commission, and the establishment of the new federal intelligence directorate. There are people within the federal government, career civil servants, who see themselves as experts forced to do the bidding of a temporary tenant of the Oval Office. They feel that it's acceptable to leak this kind of classified information in an attempt to influence national policies.
Gentle reader, President George W. Bush is the duly elected official in charge of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government of the United States. A large part of his responsibilities in that capacity consist of the conduct of foreign policy. These "inside sources" are employed in order that President Bush (or Clinton, or Bush, or Reagan, or Carter, et cetera) can have the proper information and the proper infrastructure to carry out operations as they relate to foreign policy. They are not policy makers, and they are only passive policy influencers; or rather, they're supposed to be passive policy influencers.
What's the Fly's take on this? Well, my guess is that it could be trumped up, but it's plausible. I hope that it's true. The policy of the Administration is regime change in Iran, and that's a good policy. The policy is supported by Iranian expats and many Iranian citizens, who love American culture and yearn for Democracy and self-determination. This could all be part of a contingency plan, which exists for the invasion of pretty much every country in the world.
Iran has, in the past few months, done the same things that Iraq did prior to the Coalition invasion: agreeing to terms, then disagreeing with terms, pledging to give up their technology and then demanding that they be allowed to continue its development. Iran as a nuclear power (in its current form) is unacceptable.
Basically, I'm taking this whole report with a grain of salt, but if it's true, I have no problem with it whatsoever, and I wish those hypothetical American troops a hearty "Hooyah!"
US commandos are operating inside Iran selecting sites for future air strikes, says the American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
In the New Yorker magazine, Hersh says intelligence officials have revealed that Iran is the Bush administration's "next strategic target".
Hersh says that American special forces have conducted reconnaissance missions inside Iran for six months.
Further articles are here, here, here, and here. All of the articles stem from this article in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh.
There are a couple of money shots worth noting. The first one is from the BBC article.
The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that while Hersh could be wrong he has a series of scoops to his name, including the details of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal last year.
His track record suggests that he should be taken seriously, our correspondent says.
To me, this blurb says "We don't have any actual evidence, Seymour Hersh hasn't divulged his sources of any actual evidence, but this story is remotely plausible, and we really want to believe it because it means that the evil big bad Amerikkkan Bush administration is doing something mean and nasty!"
The second money shot comes from the CNN article.
He said his information on Iran came from "inside" sources who divulged it in the hope that publicity would force the administration to reconsider.
There's one word, and one word only, for this kind of behavior: treason. This is why we've heard of purges within the CIA following President Bush's reelection, George Tenet's resignation, the results of the 9/11 Commission, and the establishment of the new federal intelligence directorate. There are people within the federal government, career civil servants, who see themselves as experts forced to do the bidding of a temporary tenant of the Oval Office. They feel that it's acceptable to leak this kind of classified information in an attempt to influence national policies.
Gentle reader, President George W. Bush is the duly elected official in charge of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government of the United States. A large part of his responsibilities in that capacity consist of the conduct of foreign policy. These "inside sources" are employed in order that President Bush (or Clinton, or Bush, or Reagan, or Carter, et cetera) can have the proper information and the proper infrastructure to carry out operations as they relate to foreign policy. They are not policy makers, and they are only passive policy influencers; or rather, they're supposed to be passive policy influencers.
What's the Fly's take on this? Well, my guess is that it could be trumped up, but it's plausible. I hope that it's true. The policy of the Administration is regime change in Iran, and that's a good policy. The policy is supported by Iranian expats and many Iranian citizens, who love American culture and yearn for Democracy and self-determination. This could all be part of a contingency plan, which exists for the invasion of pretty much every country in the world.
Iran has, in the past few months, done the same things that Iraq did prior to the Coalition invasion: agreeing to terms, then disagreeing with terms, pledging to give up their technology and then demanding that they be allowed to continue its development. Iran as a nuclear power (in its current form) is unacceptable.
Basically, I'm taking this whole report with a grain of salt, but if it's true, I have no problem with it whatsoever, and I wish those hypothetical American troops a hearty "Hooyah!"
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